Crrrack!The ground nearby split open under the magic’spressure. Vicious spikes of thaumaturgic energy shot out, searing through the shadows, leaving hot black scars.
Crrrack!Again, closer.
“Actually,” Elodie amended, “perhaps quite fast movements, what do you think?”
Gabriel did not reply. He moved his left foot forward, and Elodie moved hers back, wincing against the burning pain of the effort. It was like trying to get through setting concrete or a boring lecture on a hot afternoon. They dragged themselves out of one step and to the side, then turned to repeat the procedure. One, two three…one, two three…
Elodie exhaled a tremulous breath. She was dancing with her husband, and her heart showed no signs of breaking. (Her ankles, however, were a different matter.) Indeed, the beat of her pulse was so strong, sending such a swirl of emotion through her—happiness, and giddiness, and embarrassment over being dressed in her nightie—that she began to see stars.
Silver and blue stars, glinting in the pink glaze of early sunlight.
Blinking, she became aware that their dance was loosening the thaumaturgic bonds of the quirksand and scattering fragments of them into the air—a hundred bright, tiny stars of magic.
“Beautiful,” she said sighingly.
“Yes,” Gabriel said. His voice was so gruff, Elodie almost chided him for having no sense of wonder in his soul. Then she realized that he was not looking at the enchantment of the stars. He was looking at her.
She blushed the color of the sky.
Crrrack!A fissure opened mere inches from their feet.Scorching thaumaturgic electricity hissed from within the broken ground, transforming tiny insects into jewels.
Gabriel said nothing more, just continued to lead them in aching, gliding steps toward safety. Each turn of the waltz was easier than the last until it felt to Elodie like they moved in a seamless dream. And perhaps the magic had shifted, for they could not seem to look away from each other. Gabriel’s eyes were as dark as the ink they’d used to sign their marriage certificate. Each time he blinked, Elodie’s pulse stuttered. She forgot the quirksand, forgot Dôlylleuad. Nothing existed for her at all but the breathless quiet between her and her husband as they moved through the chaos of the world.
“Miss Hughes is better at forecasting probabilities,”he’d said once, when they were students and their professor had been allotting responsibilities for a group task. His voice had been impassive, and he’d glanced so briefly across the classroom at her that he might actually have just been blinking, but nevertheless Elodie had treasured the compliment.
“Leave that last tea bag for Miss Hughes to use, Fotheringay,”he’d commanded a fellow lecturer in the faculty lounge, thrilling Elodie so greatly, she’d been quite unable to drink the tea she made from that bag (possibly also because she’d had four cups already that morning).
“I will,”he’d said at the altar, marrying her.
Elodie carried the memories of a dozen such perfect moments with her always, private little joys that sheltered her on maudlin days. None though came anywhere near the perfection of this moment, waltzing with Gabriel in silence.
A warm gust of magic curled around her ankle, inciting her to glance down…
“Oh,” she said softly.
The quirksand had completely shattered. The fractured street lay quiet beneath their feet, magic swirling in slow, opalescent waves among the remnants of stars.
“Don’t panic,” Gabriel said.
“I’m not,” Elodie assured him.
“I was talking to myself.”
Elodie was bemused. “The spell is broken. We’re safe. Why would you panic now?”
“Because I’m going to kiss you.”
“Oh.” Panic immediately swept through her too.
“It is no doubt a consequence of the magic, sensitizing my nerves,” he said. “Or possibly the radiant effervescence of your spirit, which has fascinated me for so long now that my resistance to it has weakened.” He frowned with intense botheration, as if she were a table that wobbled on side and he a chair that wobbled on the other, and he’d run out of little bits of folded paper to make them properly straight. “I’m compelled, Elodie. I’m driven. My every thought circles back to you. My every breath wants to kiss you. I know you despise me, and I will never speak these words again, so don’t be afraid. But I l-l—” He winced. “Like your hair. And the way you draw topographical maps. And, well,you.”
“Oh.” Elodie would have thought herself dreaming were it not for a fresh breeze gusting up beneath her nightgown, acquainting her intimately with reality’s existence. “Truly?”
“Truly.”
“Oh,” she said again. “But why would you think I despise you?”
He frowned in confusion. “You run away or hide every time you see me.”
